


Becoming Real

by Recourse



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 12:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6469315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recourse/pseuds/Recourse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It suits her, this life of wandering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming Real

It suits her, this life of wandering.

When Kayrn lost the Force, she’d thought of it as liberation, but only because she couldn’t bear to feel the horrors she’d unleashed at Malachor. But when she stabbed her lightsaber into the central pillar of the Council Chamber and left it there, she’d found a measure of peace that she’d never thought possible. They spoke the word ‘exiled’ like it was a death sentence, but there was something about the open sky that always appealed. And she had studied so many worlds in the libraries beneath Dantooine, but they were all of the Republic, all documented.

Out here, there is so much more.

Case in point: for the last three months, she has made an honest living on this tiny rock that floats in the void between star systems. She hasn’t asked the proprietor of the mining complex how he found it, or how he knew that the strange slurry of chemicals inside of it create a powerful hallucinogenic effect in the minds of most sentient species for about fifteen minutes at a stretch. She’s even tried it, herself; even though the drug is so new and rare that it hasn’t been outlawed in Republic space yet, she smirked to herself at what the Council might say on such an experiment.

Today, she wears a similar smirk, holding a blaster in both hands and aiming down the sights. _Uncivilized weapons_ , she can hear in a thousand haughty Jedi voices. And perhaps they are, for the Devaronian next to her is quite uncivilized indeed, but he is the one who set up this little range in a pressured pocket of the asteroid. And he’s a laugh.

“I do _not_ get how you managed to avoid knowing how to use a blaster, girlie,” he says as she steadies her aim. “But this rock is runnin’ dry and I’m not letting you back out into that big bad galaxy unless I see you shoot.”

“You’re such a giver, Killian.” She looked at the line of canisters he’d set up at the back of the cave, standing atop a locker lying on its side.

“Hell, I let you on my rock when you ain’t ever worked a job in your life. I’m not just a giver, I’m a complete idiot.” Killian grins, his sharp teeth giving his smile a pleasant edge. “You’re lucky I like you. Now shoot.”

She takes in a deep breath, squeezes the trigger, and feels the blaster jump in her hands. “And that’s a miss,” Killian remarks. “Here. Hold on.”

He gets behind her, puts his hands on her, shows her how to hold her shoulders, her back, the way her arm needs just that little bit of give to keep her aim steady. He can be gentle when he wants to be; she’d seen it in the way he cared for his little potted plants in his shuttle, relics from a home she’d never heard of. So she doesn’t mind when he keeps holding on after the first hit, the second, the third. When the board is clear, she leans back into him, stuffing the pistol into the holster he’d given her. She feels his fingers run through her fluffy blonde hair, and sighs happily.

She has no idea what he's thinking. There is no aura around him, no way to sense his motives. Without the Force, she is taking a real risk. The thought sends a thrill through her. “I am gonna miss you,” he says. “Think we hit the last deposit yesterday.”

“We don’t need to split up,” she says.

“Now there’s an offer.”

He doesn’t know the first thing about her, she reflects as she turns to face him, putting her hands on the collar of his bulky jumpsuit. To him, she’s nothing but a drifter, with a fake name, and a ban on entering Republic space.

And that’s just fine with her.

 

* * *

 

Their fling doesn’t last too long, but he’s passionate and warm, and he’s happy to leave her where she asks when she’s ready to go. With the last of the merchandise either used or sold off, he’s got to venture into deep space and look for more, and the people of space call to her, not the empty void. So the expedition ship docks with a space station at the edge of the galaxy, a frequent stop for them during the trade, and leaves with one less passenger. Kayrn steps off, not knowing where she’ll go, or what she’ll even eat after the last of the supplies in her luggage are gone, but she’s excited to find out. The world seems somehow more alive and vibrant than it ever felt, even in the jungles of Dxun where the Force screamed life into every pore. Entering into the cantina with nothing but a pack, a duffel bag, and a couple of hard-currency coins to her name means that she’s _living_.

She takes a seat at the bar and orders herself a drink (a habit she’d picked up from Killian) and watches the crowd around her. They’re thin today, just a couple of regulars in their booths and one armored woman sitting further down the bar. Kayrn studies her as she drinks, observing deep blue skin and completely red eyes, a swoop of jet-black hair covering half of her face, her helmet on the bar next to her drink. She tries to remember a species by that description, and fails, and _now_ she is interested. The woman notices her staring just as two Advosec burst through the door behind her, forcing both of them to turn and face the newcomers.

“You killed our brother, Csilla-bred schutta,” one says, marching up to her and pulling a strange cylinder from his belt.

“Well, then, he probably shouldn’t have tried to leave Gren-ma’s planet after killing three people,” the woman replies, leaning back against the bar and putting a hand on her blaster. “Can’t blame me for doing my job. I even said I’d take him to jail like it was a real planet, but nope. He had to pull the gun.”

“Gren-ma has no authority over us. And definitely none here,” the other Advosec sneers, drawing a vibroblade from his back. Before he can swing, the blue woman draws her blaster and fires a bolt straight into his chest just as the other one holds up his cylinder and sprays something green in her face, sending her reeling away crying in pain and holding a hand over her eyes. As the remaining troublemaker draws a knife, Kayrn quickly leaps off her stool, takes out her blaster, and shoots him in the head.

The cantina is quiet for a moment as the Twi’lek bartender walks out from the backroom and surveys the scene. “Dammit, Drex,” he says finally, “I told you to stop bringing your work here.”

With her hand still over her eyes, Drex grunts, “Look, just take whatever they had on them as payment, all right? You got a washcloth?”

“No, I keep my glasses as dirty as possible.” The bartender reaches under the bar and hands her the cloth, then circles around and starts rummaging through the Advosecs’ pockets.

As Drex wipes her eyes, she feels her way across the bar until she bumps into Kayrn. “Hey, you. Human. Think you just saved my ass. What’d you do that for?”

“They started it.”

A grin breaks through on Drex’s face as she finishes wiping it off, setting the cloth aside. Her red eyes still water as she tries to look at Kayrn. “I like that. You act quick. Good trait.” She sticks out a hand. “Drex Valdov. I’m the law on half the planets in this sector.”

“Meetra Surik,” Kayrn lies, shaking her hand. “I’m nobody.”

“Well, nobody, you’re a good shot. What do you do?” Drex asks.

“Nothing, right now.”

“Huh.” Drex looks over to the bartender as he drags out a corpse by its feet. “If that’s the case, I could use a partner. I probably could’ve made it out of that, but having someone watch my back for once was nice. What do you say?”

Kayrn’s eyes widen. Could she do this? Wandering the edge of space, tracking down criminals? Well...

What else was she going to do?

“I can do that.”

“Then let me buy you a drink, and we’ll get you set up.”

 

* * *

 

She learns that Drex is a Chiss, far from home, an exile, like her. Drex buys another bed for her little ship, and the two of them are soon off, answering hails from every wayward colony that needs them. After their first job together, chasing down a bank robber who surrenders immediately at the site of Drex’s fearsome armor, Drex buys Kayrn her own set. It feels strange to be weighed down by something so heavy, but the first time a blaster shot impacts it and leaves nothing but a scorch mark, she finds that she likes wearing it. Like her blaster, it's something she’s been told to avoid to feel the Force more clearly, and now that that's gone, it's a comfort, replacing that which she’d lost, and bringing her closer to the woman she's working with.

And they do grow closer, by degrees. It isn’t long before Kayrn’s sitting in on calls and negotiations with governments, not long before everyone they meet knows them both. It’s not just “Drex the bounty hunter” anymore, it’s “Drex and Meetra.” And Drex’s teaching brings them together, too. The first shot in the cantina was more luck than skill, but with a new Mandalorian disruptor and a couple of long training sessions, Kayrn’s marksmanship matches Drex’s in no time. Drex teaches her how to apply kolto, how to make spot repairs to the ship, how to mix and pour the chemicals for grenades. “Just in case my number comes up,” she says. “And so you’re more useful.” But there’s always a smile in her words. And after almost a year of hunting, they mark their fiftieth contract completion with a day on the beaches of some unknown world, glimpsed on the scanners on their way back to the station at the end of the galaxy.

Kayrn’s seen Drex out of her armor plenty of times already, but not in this one-piece swimsuit, and it’s a pleasant sight as they relax in the strange light of the blue giant. Cold water laps at their toes, but they’re too lazy to move up the beach if they’re not sure the tide’s really coming in. The air’s heavy with some foreign plant pheromone, drifting from the red trees behind them. They’ve been swimming already, the low gravity lending it a surreal quality as they splashed each other in slow motion. No one knows they’re here. Very likely, few even know that the planet’s habitable.

Drex’s eyes are closed, her hands behind her head, sighing contentedly as the water evaporates off her blue skin. It seems luminous in this light, and Kayrn feels the urge to touch her. She’s been resisting, this time; perhaps it’s the black hair, or the armor, or the muscled physique, but there’s a little too much Raven Y’tal in Drex that keeps her from acting. But it’s been a year since exile, since Raven pushed her away. So, with just a little alcohol running through her system, she traces her fingertips along Drex’s bare hip. Her stomach buzzes pleasantly as feels goosebumps rise on Drex’s skin.

Kayrn’s bed gets sold off a while later. To make room. They don’t need it anymore.

On their fifty-fifth contract, Drex dies.

Their target’s pet rancor was a surprise, but they’d been handling it fine. It’s a juvenile, so blaster bolts can still pierce its hide, but with one misstep on the rocks of this mountainside villa garden, Drex falls on her back, and the claws pierce durasteel. Kayrn fires a charged blast into its head, and it falls beside Drex. The fat twi’lek they’d come to collect raises his hands in surrender but Kayrn shoots him anyway, because she can hear Drex’s lungs collapsing.

Kayrn stomps down flowers as she runs to Drex’s side, pulls a kolto injector from her belt, but Drex whispers a strained, “Stop.” Kayrn lifts Drex’s helmet off, sets it aside. “It’d be a waste,” Drex explains, reaching up a hand to touch Kayrn’s shoulder. “You might need it later.”

She burns Drex’s body in the garden, watching the ashes fly off the cliffs and swirl down into the snowy valleys below. She collects her payment, and then, she crosses the galaxy. To find somewhere where Meetra Surik and Drex Valdov never existed.

She knows, as she refuels and supplies herself during the journey, that the Republic and the Jedi aren’t really looking for her. That there is no real way to enforce her exile. She could return to civilization and find some kind of peace in settlement. But she also hears, in her travels, of Raven’s return as the Dark Lord Revan. And she wants no part of it.

She sells off Drex’s ship and her memory when she reaches the last inhabited sector she knows of, and starts again. There are more worlds here, more places to find or lose love, more lives to touch and experience. She has gained the skills she needs to survive as a real person, not a Jedi, a hero, or a war veteran. Exile suits her, perhaps more than war or the Jedi ever really did. Without the Force bonds she once so easily created, she finds that leaving people and places behind after loving them has a certain charm. There are no ties that bind her any longer, not even to this galaxy.

There are many years’ worth of places to wander here. She takes every opportunity that comes her way, and lets the past fall away.

She considers, once, after a short contract with a mercenary band, how she will end her life out here. She remembers Drex offering her that one last piece of kindness and thoughtfulness as she lay dying in the aftermath in a battle. It’s been a long time since she thought of Drex, though she still wears her gifted armor. Drex had lived a fine life, and would be remembered fondly by some, hated by others, forgotten by most of the galaxy. It might not be so bad, Kayrn thinks, to die like that. The Mandalorian Wars are ages past. It may be best for the galaxy to forget General Tekal.

When she finds out that it hasn’t, it’s an unpleasant surprise.


End file.
